Those Judged Losers In A Presidential Campaign Often Leave A Winner`s Legacy

COMMENTARY

April 3, 1988|By DAVID BRODER, Washington Post Writers Group

MILWAUKEE -- One of the solaces politics offers to those who enter its cruelly competitive arena is that victories are possible even for those who are judged losers.

Considering the number who seek nomination to almost any major office, the rules almost dictate that for every man or woman finally elected, three or six or 10 will be disappointed. But history is full of examples of individuals whose ideas, arguments and examples inspired movements which ultimately came to prevail. From Lincoln to Reagan and from Bryan to Humphrey, we have seen losers transformed to winners -- either in person or in their impact on events.

Those thoughts were triggered as I watched from a distance the graceful exits last week of two more presidential contenders, Sen. Robert J. Dole, R- Kan., and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, D-Mo. By the manner of their going -- their unbowed heads and their good humor -- they displayed their personal mettle. And in their final utterances as candidates, they both left a legacy for the future.

To speak first of Gephardt, this campaign has clearly been a tremendous growth experience for him, even though it did not yield the White House. Those -- including this reporter -- who had doubted the young congressman`s readiness for the big leagues of presidential politics saw a clear demonstration of capacity for national leadership which he will have a chance to prove another day.

A man who had seemed little more than an unusually energetic legislative technician developed and demonstrated steadily growing skills as a campaigner of strength and passion.

I didn`t agree with, or particularly admire, many of the shorthand slogans Gephardt mouthed during his campaign. But when he got serious again, at the end, he delivered a speech to the Economic Club of Detroit that may well have been the most coherent policy statement I heard from any candidate in the whole campaign.

The topic was trade, and one need not endorse Gephardt`s legislative proposals to recognize the power of his analysis of why so many of his critics ``insistently echo ..... a past that no longer exists and will not come again.`` He is right when he says that, ``There is widespread resistance to reopening and re-examining the trade question because doing so challenges assumptions that have been fundamental to official policy and prevailing theory for 40 or 50 years.``

What is true of trade policy is equally true of defense theory, of the thinking about the major alliances, our dealings with Latin-America, our views of schools and education and of many other topics. Where Gephardt will be proven right -- eventually -- is his contention that the only way the Democratic Party will win the White House is if it recaptures ``its essential role as an agent of fundamental change.``

His prescription for the trade-policy component may not have been right. But on the basic proposition, he is closer to the truth than those who talk only about tinkering at the edges of existing policies.

In a similar vein, Dole is more certain to be proved right -- eventually -- about the situation of the Republican Party than those who would just seek to extend the Reagan era of good feelings for another four years.

The Senate minority leader dealt last week with a greater personal frustration than Gephardt: The crumbling of what was probably his last, best chance of being president. For five days after he won the Iowa caucuses last February, Dole could realistically imagine himself as president. But George Bush`s resilience in New Hampshire, and mistakes in the Dole campaign, ended that dream.

But the often angry Kansan overrode that personal hurt and delivered a series of valedictory speeches on foreign policy, budget policy and the future of the Republican Party that left his backers feeling proud.

The speech about the party was particularly striking, in that the one thing he saw clearly is that the GOPcannot really lead the nation effectively over a long period of time as long as it remains complacently a party of the satisfied, even smug, white middle and upper classes.

In his farewell talk to those who worked in his campaign, Dole said: ``We must cast off the restrictions of privilege and class. We must offer help to those who need it. We must support and defend civil rights. We must stand ready to meet the challenges to freedom anywhere in the world. We need to open up the process, and our leaders should not be timid about discussing issues that affect the homeless and the hungry.``

He is right about all of that, and the challenge he laid down is there for George Bush and the others who now hold responsibility for the Republicans` future to meet. It is a goodly legacy these men leave, a legacy that assures they are not, in any real sense, losers.